NidenShareTweetWith the groundbreaking Phoebe just days away, organisations large and small are in full prep mode. Anticipating the post-patch landscape and adapting puts Darwin’s theory to the test yet again as corps and alliances reinvent how things are done. The most dramatic changes are happening in null security space, with consolidations of territory, caches being set up and renter empires suddenly exposed to the potential threat of roving marauders, now that their masters protective reach will be reduced. In lowsec, FCs are seeing the potential for the development of new, larger doctrines, now able to focus on fighting locals, rather than anticipating hot-drops from some remote entity. In highsec there are those who now dare to dream about making their way to null and carving out a piece for themselves, while industrialists anticipate the changing marketplace and the needs of post-phoebe capsuleers.What have we seen of these preparations? Have players readied themselves properly and what kind of advantages will those that have enjoy?Blackhuey: The CFC’s preparations are either obvious and transparent, as we’ve seen in the CEO Update, or veiled in cigar smoke and ~opsec~ as the skyteams prepare their battle and contingency plans. With the incoming nerfs to jump drives and bridges, pilots have been busying themselves consolidating assets and establishing caches of equipment and clones. Training plans are prioritising anything to do with jump clones and interceptors. CFC members and squads in the vacated southwestern territories are resettling (welcome to Vale, Fwedditbros!), our Reavers are raining pain from W-space, the unholy Miniluv+CODE hisec murder bromance continues unabated and unaffected after a brief JF range related squee, and there is a widespread sense of business as usual.
I was delighted to see yet another Reddit group organising to colonise vacated space in Querious. Succeed or fail, this is great content and those pilots will be busy little ants for a good long time if their dream of establishing a Freeport is to be realised. Good luck to you, PFR.
As a blops and skirmish FC, I’m looking at the changes with mixed feelings. I get the wider strategic need for them, but they also impose significant challenges for local operations which I feel is a weakness in the design. As a line member, I’m hopeful (but not overly confident) that the pain of the Phoebe nerfs will pay off in content. I am entirely confident though that my AFKtar paradise will remain in CFC hands for a good long time to come.
Forlorn: With my limited time for EVE Online at the moment I spent nearly every time I log in with preparing my chars and assets for Phoebe. Three weeks ago PL released their plan for Phoebe, which didn’t leak to publord levels yet. I made 28 new jumpclones for my cyno chars, moved vast amounts of assets, cleaned up my hangar and stockpiled ships, mods and implants. Overall I freed my wallet of close to 13 bil ISK.
As it is not my part to “leak” what we do I can see that PL members have been very active to be ready in time and shake everything up. I am looking forward to Phoebe just for this and I will enjoy our theory crafting and testing of new concepts and ways to adapt faster than the rest of EVE.
Tarek: If I ever regret having given up my old career it is now. During the reshuffling of the deck that will be occurring there is so much potential for mistakes and such a treasure trove of intel to be gathered and sold. Where will the caches be? Which routes will the migrations take and when do they happen? Who acquires which jumpclone to set them up where? When will moon mining poses be taken down? It will be one of the best times – if not the best – to be a spy and intel broker in EVE.
As things are, I am just sitting in lowsec and engage in speculation with my fellow militia pilots. Will we see an end of tourism by bored nullsec groups looking for content because they really have enough to do at home and can’t simply redeploy in two days? Can we finally fly fleets of battleships and HACs against the outlaw heavy hitters and the worst hotdrop we might get on our head is a Shadow Cartel capfleet with maybe a Nyx or two added? Will Sniggwaffe finally learn what it means to hold the field on their own without a PL fleet one batphonecall away? 😛
While nullsec is in accelerated reorganisation mode, my impression is that the lowsec players – especially in Faction Warfare – will be testing the waters for some time and eventually end up with a new fighting meta over time. We simply are not as dependent on wide-ranging infrastructure and highly developed organisational paradigms to be affected to the same degree.
Cilvius: Living in w-space and with limited time to log in lately I haven’t seen much in the way of preparations for Phoebe. I wouldn’t expect to see preparations though, as we are so far removed from the low and null entities that are affected by the travel changes. I honestly don’t expect w-space groups to need to make many preparations for the changes as most wormhole residents that I know already have a larger supply of ships in their home wormhole than they realize. If it becomes far more viable to conduct roams through null and low I think most players in w-space already have the ships to do so. You might see an increase in blops activity from wormhole players, but again many players already have a blops or two along with other covert ops ships to use. Overall I think players in w-space are just looking to see what gets shaken up and where so they know where to look for more targets.
Sho: For Waffles. we have been preparing pretty extensively on the director side, getting logistics and routes set up for potential future deployments. We are doing what most other large groups are doing and training up jump clone skills extensively. I’ve personally bought two Rorquals with clone bays to stage in Kinakka and our deployment system and allow Waffles. to quickly create clones wherever we move.
Deploying is going to be more difficult and will be more reliant on JFs than suitcase carriers compared to previous moves. Our cyno network is going to be hit pretty heavily by the death cloning nerf, but we have workarounds by managing jump clones of the cyno alts and organizing where these alts are located ahead of the changes.
Dirk: Hoo boy.
The past 2 to 3 weeks have been insane. From consolidating assets left strewn across the cosmos to making tons of jumpclones to milking R64 towers for as long as possible to Brothers of Tangra slumlord team completely stripping itself down to the relative bone, Eve has been hectic. As I write this, the B0T team has moved everything that PL is taking out of Drones, and we are essentially done with the renter project at this time. It was a good experience, something I’d done once before when I made TEST’s short-lived renter alliance, and now as a member of the first- or second-place renter empire (depending on who you ask). I’m never doing it again. Writing for CZ is about as “responsible” as I’m going to get from now on. Of course, I said that when I left TEST too, and then Iendedup coordinating most of the Insidious Empire transfer. Who knows what the future holds! Probably some exploding ships!
Oh Takashawa: RIP my Dyspro moon. Due to its location, it’s going the way of the dodo, along with B0T. Revitalizing my non-lazy income stream has been a major priority for me over the past month, as I can no longer roll to a tower in the middle of nowhere once a month and collect 5bil in moon goo. I’m sure poor people and 99%ers will cheer this divestiture, and I’m okay with that, because I love the fuck out of anything that shakes up EVE, and to be honest it got to a point where I was barely able to bother going to empty the moon, because I had money and so why bother. I’m glad not to have to deal with that anymore.
I’ve dropped about 15bil so far prepping for Phoebe, between buying hilarious toys for the next time we choose to come home, setting up clones, relocating assets, and all sorts of other to-dos I’ve been taking care of. Stripping towers, getting back into production, and lots of asset consolidation. PL is nomadic by nature, and even with only a year and a bit in the alliance, I had stuff everywhere. That’s done, now – I think my main has assets in fewer than 20 stations, and half of those are travel ceptors in places where I have clones.
At an alliance level, I can’t really discuss what PL’s been up to. Suffice to say that we’ve been rethinking and retooling pretty much everything about how we do everything, to be leaner and harder than we’ve been in a while, and I haven’t seen this level of excitement in the alliance about what we’re up to at any point since I joined last year. It’s been a wild ride so far, and a crazy month, and it’s only going to get crazier from here on out. I can’t wait.
Niden: As Tarek mentioned, new horizons are opening up in lowsec. People are starting to feel like it will be our territory a little more after Phoebe. Even now, as nullsec prepares, the meta in lowsec has been developing. We’re seeing local battleship fleets with carrier support starting to emerge with a bit more regularity, people are talking about finally training for capitals and getting into local industry. With the reach of the drone-people nullsec empires reduced local, entities are given room to grow and fight each other, while creating an economy to support that. Phoebe is almost universally seen as a Good Thing in lowsec and people are making plans that they saw as futile earlier, so much so that we’re also seeing old players return, seeing the new potential in lowsec.
Tags: cz minutes, phoebe
12 year EVE veteran, Snuffed Out scumbag, writer, graphic artist, producer, Editor-in-Chief of Crossing Zebras and the second most influential player in EVE, according to EVE Onion.
Niden
Cilvius: Living in w-space and with limited time to log in lately I haven’t seen much in the way of preparations for Phoebe. I wouldn’t expect to see preparations though, as we are so far removed from the low and null entities that are affected by the travel changes. I honestly don’t expect w-space groups to need to make many preparations for the changes as most wormhole residents that I know already have a larger supply of ships in their home wormhole than they realize. If it becomes far more viable to conduct roams through null and low I think most players in w-space already have the ships to do so. You might see an increase in blops activity from wormhole players, but again many players already have a blops or two along with other covert ops ships to use. Overall I think players in w-space are just looking to see what gets shaken up and where so they know where to look for more targets.
Sho: For Waffles. we have been preparing pretty extensively on the director side, getting logistics and routes set up for potential future deployments. We are doing what most other large groups are doing and training up jump clone skills extensively. I’ve personally bought two Rorquals with clone bays to stage in Kinakka and our deployment system and allow Waffles. to quickly create clones wherever we move.
Deploying is going to be more difficult and will be more reliant on JFs than suitcase carriers compared to previous moves. Our cyno network is going to be hit pretty heavily by the death cloning nerf, but we have workarounds by managing jump clones of the cyno alts and organizing where these alts are located ahead of the changes.
Dirk: Hoo boy.
The past 2 to 3 weeks have been insane. From consolidating assets left strewn across the cosmos to making tons of jumpclones to milking R64 towers for as long as possible to Brothers of Tangra slumlord team completely stripping itself down to the relative bone, Eve has been hectic. As I write this, the B0T team has moved everything that PL is taking out of Drones, and we are essentially done with the renter project at this time. It was a good experience, something I’d done once before when I made TEST’s short-lived renter alliance, and now as a member of the first- or second-place renter empire (depending on who you ask). I’m never doing it again. Writing for CZ is about as “responsible” as I’m going to get from now on. Of course, I said that when I left TEST too, and then I ended up coordinating most of the Insidious Empire transfer. Who knows what the future holds! Probably some exploding ships!
Oh Takashawa: RIP my Dyspro moon. Due to its location, it’s going the way of the dodo, along with B0T. Revitalizing my non-lazy income stream has been a major priority for me over the past month, as I can no longer roll to a tower in the middle of nowhere once a month and collect 5bil in moon goo. I’m sure poor people and 99%ers will cheer this divestiture, and I’m okay with that, because I love the fuck out of anything that shakes up EVE, and to be honest it got to a point where I was barely able to bother going to empty the moon, because I had money and so why bother. I’m glad not to have to deal with that anymore.
I’ve dropped about 15bil so far prepping for Phoebe, between buying hilarious toys for the next time we choose to come home, setting up clones, relocating assets, and all sorts of other to-dos I’ve been taking care of. Stripping towers, getting back into production, and lots of asset consolidation. PL is nomadic by nature, and even with only a year and a bit in the alliance, I had stuff everywhere. That’s done, now – I think my main has assets in fewer than 20 stations, and half of those are travel ceptors in places where I have clones.
At an alliance level, I can’t really discuss what PL’s been up to. Suffice to say that we’ve been rethinking and retooling pretty much everything about how we do everything, to be leaner and harder than we’ve been in a while, and I haven’t seen this level of excitement in the alliance about what we’re up to at any point since I joined last year. It’s been a wild ride so far, and a crazy month, and it’s only going to get crazier from here on out. I can’t wait.
Niden: As Tarek mentioned, new horizons are opening up in lowsec. People are starting to feel like it will be our territory a little more after Phoebe. Even now, as nullsec prepares, the meta in lowsec has been developing. We’re seeing local battleship fleets with carrier support starting to emerge with a bit more regularity, people are talking about finally training for capitals and getting into local industry. With the reach of the 
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